Take Me To The Water
by merlinmercury
Summary: Winchester family bonding time by the sea, that's what this is supposed to be. Of course, there's no way they could have anticipated the whole host of assholes living next door, with their huge, pretentious house and their nightly parties.


Family bonding time, that's what this is supposed to be.

Just the Winchester brothers getting away from it all for a week or two, or however long it takes to dispel some of that black cloud hanging over them that is not only their Dad's life but now his death as well. So far, 'bonding' has mostly involved Dean turning up the dial on the Metallica, then Sam whingeing and turning it back down again—but maybe once they make it to the coast things will lighten up somewhat. The ocean: refreshing them, washing away some of their crap, all that. Sam can braid seaweed into nice pretty necklaces, stick shells in his hair and write poetry about the waves or whatever. Dean can kick back with a beer or three and soak up a little pleasant peace and quiet, for once.

They're heading to a place that was left to John by some distant cousin. Neither Sam or Dean had known anything about it until their father's estate—such as it was—was being passed along to them. Through meetings in lawyers' stuffy offices, the promise of a beach getaway has been practically the only thing keeping Dean standing.

It turns out that 'house' is perhaps a slightly generous word to use with the run-down shack that had (some years ago, evidently) belonged to Distant Cousin Wilson. There are three rooms in the place—four if you count the toilet out back—: a rusty bare-bones kitchen, what could have been a TV room if the tiny old television wasn't smashed on the floor, and a bedroom with a couple of fairly unspeakable mattresses dumped in the corner.

Sam's nose wrinkles as they wander the few steps it takes to explore. Dean scolds him for being prissy, but he has to admit it's pretty funky in here. He finds an old surfboard stashed in the bedroom, though, which is awesome.

"Hey," Dean musters up some cheer, "this ain't so bad! Hell, we can camp out front if need be. It's all about the location, right?"

Sam, hippie that he is, actually looks like he might been keen on the idea of sleeping out with nature, so Dean counts that as a win. Himself, he's surprisingly keen. The swishing sound of the ocean is loud here, with the sand dunes starting literally ten steps out the rusty front gate of the house, and the sea breeze rolling around outside is made of salty air that's hard and clean and seems to leave his lungs different after it's driven in and out of them.

The house to the right of theirs is ordinary-looking; luxurious in comparison, but then that isn't exactly difficult to achieve. The one to the left is a monstrosity, overly far up the top end of the spectrum where theirs droops sorrily off the bottom. It's _three_ storeys tall, extremely square and practically made of glass, some of which is decoratively frosted and awful. Multiple shades of taupe paint are smoothed over big, pretentious walls, needlessly fancy light fittings and entirely useless ornamental pieces hanging off them like tacky jewellery. They have a pool, which Dean has never fully understood given the ocean is just metres away, but whatever. The worst thing of all is the fountain that stands in the middle of the manicured lawn—an ostentatiously large, glazed angel that spits a steady stream of water out and into the scalloped bowl beneath it. There's something about the set of its wings that looks vaguely demonic, something about its face that's incredibly smug. Dean hasn't met the people who live there, but he thinks he might hate them already.

"Whaddya say we find our boardies and hit the beach?" he grins at his brother, who actually smiles back at him for the first time in at least the past three days.

And hey, maybe family bonding time won't go so dismally after all.

The water is just the perfect temperature to counteract the heavy humidity. They're half-shielded from the brunt of the midday sun by the cloud cover, but the flip side is that the heat is sealed down over them. Sam's not sure whether there are fires somewhere or whether the air itself is just hot enough to taste smoky and burning. The wind is relatively gentle, only stirring up soft waves which roll, rather than scrape and crash, up to the shoreline where they reach up and stroke back down the sand. The sand had been like hot ashes under his feet as he ran down towards the ocean, but he'd relished the mounting burn knowing it would only magnify the cool relief that followed moments later. It's simple, the heat and the cool; the baked dryness of the air and the ground, against the endless saturation of the ocean, each element extreme but perfectly balanced against its opposite.

Sam lies on his back in the water and lets it drag him gently up and down. He watches the seabirds circle, black against the blue-white of the overcast sky. He lets out a breath so long and weighty that he thinks he must have been holding it for years.

Somewhere nearby, Dean lets out a groan of contentment. "Can we just stay here forever?" he asks.

"Mm," Sam says, not exactly in agreement—because that would be crazy—but not in protest either.

_"Oh my god piss _off_, Lucifer!" _The shout is loud and shrill, and it manages to crack right through the peace that Sam's got happening. He stands back up, shakes his hair off a bit and looks around to see the source of the noise.

"I don't see what your problem is, Gabriel," a second voice retorts. This one is smoother, buttery and self-assured in a way that screams _asshole_.

Two guys, maybe Dean's age or a few years older, are crashing through the tiny breakers and into the water right next to where Sam and Dean are swimming. The shorter one wears fluorescent orange board shorts, decorated with green and silver palm trees. The taller wears white shorts and a white t-shirt that clearly isn't made for swimming, judging by the way it clings to every piece of his torso, so stretched and see-through he'd get equal coverage wearing nothing at all. He's carrying a surfboard under his arm while Orange Shorts is hefting a large inflatable... Sam thinks it could either be a dinosaur or a dragon.

It's only once they're practically on top of Sam and Dean that they seem to notice them—or Orange Shorts does, at least. All White spares Sam a fleeting glance, then keeps paddling out into the perfectly flat oceanon his board.

"Hi there," Orange Shorts says, nodding at Sam, then at Dean. "I'm Gabriel. You guys haven't been around here before, have you? Pretty sure I'd remember abs like those if I'd seen 'em."

"I'm Dean, this is Sam," Dean answers. "We just arrived today, camping out in that crappy little shack up there at number three," he points up the beach past the trees to the first row of houses, "next to the great big douchey one."

Gabriel lets out a laugh. "Well, howdy neighbour, it's nice to meet ya," he says with a grin. "Me and my bag-o-dicks big brother Luke over there are staying with a bunch of our cousins in number four. Y'know, the big douchey one."

Sam watches Dean's facial expressions as he considers concocting an apology, but decides that the house is indeed douchey and he'll stand by his original assessment.

"Good to meet you too," Sam steps in.

It's three a.m. and it is decidedly not good to have met Gabriel or any of his family. The house next door is still teeming with people—very loud, very drunk people—and the throbbing bass line of one generic dance song just keeps melting on into the next.

Sam's given up on sleeping, so he's lying on his towel under the trees with a novel and his phone as a flashlight, reading under the sky like it's early afternoon instead of past midnight. The night air hangs around him the way still, lukewarm water would, and the clouds have turned different shades of plummy purple and grey against the darkness above. It would be lovely—and it is, for the most part—if only he could get far enough away to pretend the stupid music and the stupid house party from which it emanates weren't still raging on. They must be ready to shut down any minute now, he tells himself.

Glass smashes and a particularly rowdy cry goes up. Sam counts his breaths, tries to focus on the washing of the waves in a desperate bid for patience and zen.

He's so distracted that he doesn't actually notice the person approaching until there's a figure standing right over him. He can only see a silhouette against the moonlight, but he can tell that the person—guy, it's definitely a guy—is quite tall with ruffled hair, and a guitar in one of his hands.

"You're Sam, aren't you?" the man says, and Sam can hear the alcohol in his pronunciation.

"I am," he confirms. "Who are you?"

"Luke," says the man, and Sam recognises him as the surfboard guy from earlier. "People call me Lucifer sometimes, though. You can too if you'd like."

"Okay. Uh, was there something you wanted? Because I notice you're having a party over there."

Luke snorts. "Parties blow," he says, crouching down and seating himself cross-legged on the ground, the guitar across his lap. "Or, well, they can be good at first, but not the tenth night in a row."

"Really?" Sam asks incredulously. "Please tell me this isn't actually the tenth consecutive night like this."

Luke chuckles under his breath, but there's a gap in the music so the sound comes out loud in the night air. "Gabriel and Balthazar are creatures of their own kind."

Sam only realises that Luke has a bottle with him when he lifts it to his lips. Vodka, and half empty, by the look of it. He swings it over in Sam's direction, an offering.

Sam declines politely; it might not be the best idea ever to accept a drink from a stranger who goes by the name of Lucifer.

"Suit yourself," Luke says, taking another gulp.

Silence stretches between them for a couple of minutes, the party noise in the background never letting up. Sam is just about to return to his book when he hears the sound of the guitar.

He looks up at Luke, who has his eyes closed and his head lolling back, his hands moving almost tenderly over the strings. It's not a tune that Sam recognises, if it's actually a song at all, but the way it wafts off over the sand makes it somehow easier to block out the brazen electronic punches of _We R Who We R_ coming from further up the beach.

Dean might not be so opposed to this raging party if he were somewhere in the middle of it with a bottle of beer in his hand. But, depressingly, he isn't, so he hates the shitty party like the plague. People are overflowing from the douchey mansion—they're crammed onto the balconies, splashing and shrieking in the pool, spilling out over the sand and right down to the ocean. They're sitting on the short brick wall that surrounds _Dean's property_, and maybe he'd chill out about that if the whole thing weren't so damned infuriating.

He has half a mind to march in there and find whoever's responsible, shove them around until they shut the party down, but the only person he's even slightly familiar with in there is that Gabriel guy, and he has a snowball's chance in hell of being able to find him amongst the throng of people, let alone convince him to do anything.

Dean's on the verge of jumping into his baby and going for a midnight drive when somebody stumbles right up to his front doorstep, where he's sitting because he's not getting much use out of the sleeping bag he set up on the long, soft grass.

"My apologies," the stumbler says, in a voice that seems too low and growly for his frame. Dean's not sure what to do about the way the sound shudders through him, makes him want to reach out and see if he can feel the texture of it through its owner's skin. "I had not intended to trespass upon your property."

"Uh," Dean says, far less articulately than the (admittedly bizarrely articulate) drunk guy still trying to get his balance a couple of feet away. "No problem, I guess."

"I apologise also for my family's disruptive proceedings. They believe they have the right to impose Ke$ha upon the world." The stranger pauses, then says gravely, "No-one has that right."

Dean can't help but bark out a laugh at that. "Damn straight," he agrees, though the wording only serves to remind him that this is definitely one of his gayer moments. "So you're one of Gabriel's cousins?" he asks.

"You are familiar with Gabriel?" the stranger sways precariously, tips just a little too far to the right and before Dean quite knows what he's doing, he's on his feet with an armful of drunk dude, easing him slowly to a seated position on the step beside him.

"Not really. I just met him at the beach earlier."

"I see."

"So, you are one if his cousins then?" Dean reiterates.

"Oh, yes. My name is Castiel."

"Cool name," says Dean, even though really it's kind of a weird name. It sounds cool when Castiel says it, though. Dean's pretty sure the phone book would sound kickass read out in that voice, though. "I'm Dean."

"I do not enjoy large parties," Castiel explains. "I prefer to go for walks, sometimes to late sessions at the cinema if anything is being shown there. Tonight, however, my brother Balthazar decided to involve me in a drinking game before I was able to make my escape."

"So he did," Dean grins as Castiel leans against his shoulder.

"Do you enjoy parties, Dean?" he inquires—and damn, the eyes fixed on Dean right now are so _very_ wide and blue.

"Yeah, I like 'em fine. It's just way better when you're actually in them. Out here, not so great."

Castiel makes a low humming noise. Dean swears he can feel the vibrations of it against his neck. He shivers lightly.

"You could attend, if you wished," Castiel offers. "There are certainly enough alcoholic beverages for one more person to share."

"I dunno man. I don't know anybody, and the whole thing looks a bit too expensive for me to go alone. I'd go if you were there."

Cas is leaning even more heavily against Dean's side now. Dean turns his head to look down at him, only to find a mouth pressed up against his, the scrape of stubble against his cheeks.

The second it takes for Dean to process what's happening is also the time it takes for him to realise that he wants this exactly as much as he can't have it.

He pulls away, rests a hand over Cas' shoulder to hold him upright. "See how you feel about doin' that sober and then get back to me, okay?" he says, and wishes he could believe that he'll still be wanted in the light of day, where the softness of shadows and the glowing buzz of alcohol weren't around to make him seem like someone better than he is.

The drizzle sets in mid-morning the following day, the temperature steadily dropping until Dean's more comfortable in the jeans and jacket he thankfully brought along than any of his real summer clothes. There are a few ancient fishing rods stashed in the kitchen broom cupboard, of all places, so he tapes up one that's only slightly broken. He heads down the road to the service station to grab some new line, as well as some bait, and finally makes his way up the small jetty that juts out into the water not too far from the house. He strings the rod up with the new line, hooks one of the tiny greenish prawns on the end of it and casts, sitting back to watch the bait hit the water along with a million light raindrops.

The water is cool but not bitterly cold, just nice and refreshing, and he lets it soak through his hair and run down over his face, enjoying the way that rain—strangely enough—makes everything seem more sheltered, like the sky is closer and the world is all connected, without such gaping open spaces.

"Dean?" he startles at the sound of a familiar bass voice.

"Hey, Castiel," he says, probably sounding slightly less laid back than would have been ideal, but it's also true that he could have managed much worse.

Castiel is wearing a tan trench coat over what look like actual suit pants and a button-up shirt, and Dean has no idea what kind of person brings that sort of getup on their summer holiday or why, but then he has no idea why most of Castiel's family are the way they apparently are.

He's also holding a large umbrella, which he offers to Dean with a small gesture.

"You are getting very damp," he observes.

Dean smiles. "Yeah, that's kinda the point. I like the feel of it—makes you feel particularly alive, I guess."

Cas seems to consider, and then in one swift motion he folds the umbrella in on itself and brings it back down to dangle by his side. The raindrops spatter darkly over the tan coat and bead in his hair.

"You didn't have to do that," Dean says.

"I wanted to," Cas says easily. "You are right about the rain being invigorating."

Dean nods. "So, ah, whatcha doin' out here?"

Cas shifts, looking a little awkward. It's cute. He coughs. "I wanted to thank you. For tolerating me in my inebriated state last night."

Dean shrugs. "No problem," he says. At least, not _that _problem.

"I also wanted to extend an invitation to the party tonight. Michael, the eldest of my cousins and a rather serious man, has delayed his arrival, so Gabriel and Balthazar are throwing yet another 'bash'."

"Sure, thanks. I mean, so long as you'll be sticking around?"

"I will be there."

"Cool. Then so will I."

"Excellent."

"Awesome."

The party is even more ridiculous on the inside than Dean could have imagined. The coloured lights that spin dizzily over the walls, the freaking _ice sculptures _that are pretty much the worst idea Dean's ever heard given the hot summer weather... the toga theme that apparently half the guests have decided to run with and which has resulted in Dean seeing way more asscrack than he wanted to before he's even had the chance to get stuck into his first drink.

Castiel looks decidedly uncomfortable, walking stiffly through the fray like he's liable to be bowled over or indecently assaulted or worse at any moment. Dean supposes those are legitimate fears. He takes the opportunity to slip his arm through Cas' so they don't get separated, steering them both towards the table where an innocuous-looking but almost certainly deadly punch sits in a glass bowl so huge a shark could probably swim around in it. Around the punch are bottles of every other drink under the sun, so Dean selects a brand of beer that he recognises. Cas closes a hand around the neck of a champagne bottle.

"Outside?" Dean suggests, and Cas jumps on the idea like a starving man on a juicy burger.

They end up in the building's narrow side path, of all places. Nobody else seems interested in hanging out here, where the washing lines hang heavy with drying swimsuits and the smooth pavers underfoot are littered with broken plastic pegs. Cas brushes the pegs away from one such paver and takes a seat, and Dean sinks down beside him, back propped up against the taupe-coloured side wall of the house.

"So," Dean says, taking a long pull on his beer. God, it's good.

"So," Castiel echoes, deftly pulling the cork on the champagne—some sparkling French rosé thing, as it turns out, and directing the overflow into a cheap plastic flute.

"What do you do, when you're not partying with your crazy family or going for long walks through the night?" Dean asks.

Cas cracks a smile, toothy and kind of inelegant in a way which makes it feel particularly honest. Dean likes it. He likes it a lot, really.

"I initially studied accounting, to appease my father. However, history has always been my true passion, and it is the area I am working in for my Master's."

Dean whistles. "Wow, man. So you're a total nerd, huh?"

"It has been said," Cas agrees.

"You should talk to Sam about that stuff, he'd love it. Kid scored a full ride into Stanford Law. Evidently he inherited all the brains of the family."

Castiel frowns. "And what about you, Dean?"

"I'm just a mechanic; I work for my uncle Bobby. Was never really one for school."

"School is not the be all and end all of education, nor is it the only indicator of intelligence or skill," Cas says, and he's already drained one glass full of wine and is working on his second.

"Well, I appreciate that, but it doesn't change the fact I probably couldn't have gotten into college if I'd tried," Dean shrugs.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe that for a moment," Cas says, like it's just that easy to imagine Dean as someone smart. "Besides, I couldn't fix a car no matter _how _hard I tried. And what good would a world filled with accountants do if none of them could even travel to their offices? What good would a world filled with historians do with no one out there actually making history for them to record?"

"Anyone ever tell you you're a really philosophical drunk?" Dean laughs.

"I am not yet drunk."

"Well then. I can't wait to see how profound you get after a few more."

In actual fact, the drunker Cas gets the more his personality splits between grouchy and handsy. Dean, who is apparently a happy drunk today, is wildly amused by it all. He places a friendly hand on Cas' shoulder when he sidles over to sit right beside Dean. It's easier to pass the wine bottle back and forth between them, this way. They're on a second one, a dry white that stings just right on Dean's tongue.

"I am glad you're here, Dean," Cas says, his deep voice gruff and a little sloppy.

"Me too," Dean grins.

"No, really. I have never enjoyed these gatherings. My cousins are all too well acquainted with one another and too rambunctious to include me."

"What does rambunctious even mean?" Dean interjects. "That's the funniest word I've heard all day, by far."

"I don't usually have friends with whom to spend these occasions."

"So we're friends?" Dean looks into the bright blue eyes that are fixed quite intently on him. The eyes flicker down to his lips, then back up again.

"If you are amenable to that, of course," Cas all but _growls_—and fuck, Dean has never had a thing for long words or fancy phrasing before now, but in Cas' voice it all sounds like erotica.

He leans a little closer.

Cas leans closer still.

They hover like that, noses almost touching, until finally Dean closes the gap.

"Ditching the party again?" Sam asks when Luke's shadow hovers over him. He's sitting at the foot of the sand dunes (better not to damage them by climbing all over them) and watching the last orangey lights of the sunset bleed out into evening. The air still has that velvety bathwater feel, and he breathes it in readily. A couple of hundred metres away, Miley Cyrus declares her intention to party on through the night.

"Indeed." Luke has a full bottle of Jack in his hand tonight, seal still intact. Sober, he plants himself carefully in the sand beside Sam, tension in his shoulders that Sam's sure wasn't so marked the previous night.

Luke produces a pair of plastic tumblers and hands one to Sam.

Sam watches as he breaks the seal on the drink and figures there can't be any harm in accepting this time. The amber liquid burns gratifyingly down his throat like the memory of the fiery sunset that's now completely ebbed away from the sky, replaced by rich navy. A couple of clouds still linger after the morning's rain, but for the most part the weather tonight is clear.

"Do you ever feel like your family are the people who understand you the least of everyone in the world?" Luke asks, as though that's a normal thing to ask a virtual stranger.

The thing is, Sam _does _know how that feels.

"Yeah, I think I do," he agrees.

Luke hums thoughtfully.

"I used to love parties, you know," he says, and Sam thinks there are threads of wistfulness in his words, like he's drifting off into a different time even as he speaks. "My brother Gabriel, I taught him every drinking game he knows. We used to have such fun."

"Why'd that change?" Sam asks.

"One night we threw a particularly rowdy one. I mean, they're all pretty bad but this... this one was catastrophic. A huge group of crashers brought all kinds of trouble, and everything got too loud, too violent, too illegal. The cops were called to shut the whole nightmare down, and a bunch of people were arrested. My older brother, Michael, who has taken it upon himself to be overly responsible and bossy ever since our father left, was beyond furious with us. As the second oldest in the family, it made sense to him that the entirety of the blame should fall upon me."

Sam frowns. "That doesn't sound fair at all."

"It wasn't," Luke agrees, tossing back the half-inch of Jack in the bottom of his cup and pouring out a refill. "But at least that way the others were able to continue as normal. Better that than put every one of us in the doghouse."

"So, what, going to parties reminds you of that?"

"Yes and no. I think that final party simply fulfilled my lifetime quota for outrageous beach bashes. And I think perhaps a part of me believes that if I abstain then Michael will notice and forgive me." He chuckles mirthlessly. "Like that will ever happen."

"That's awful," Sam says. Because it is; he knows more or less what it's like to crave your family's forgiveness even when not technically in the wrong. "My old man didn't want me to go to college," he offers. "I had to run away from home to go to Stanford, where I am now. We fought, he kicked me out of the house, never spoke to me again."

Luke looks at him with an assessing gaze. "Stanford is a prestigious school," he remarks, puzzled. "How can he not take pride in your achievements?"

"That sort of thing wasn't a priority for him. Dad was... well, he was an ex-marine and a mechanic. With him it was all about practical work, physical strength—and carrying on with the family business. My brother's a mechanic like him, but I just... wanted something else. That wasn't okay with him."

"You weren't lying, then," Luke says, a small smile twitching at the edges of his mouth. "When you said you understood."

Sam smiles back. "No, I wasn't."

The next day is perfectly idyllic, filled with sunshine that's bright and warm but not so intense that it threatens to fry them alive. The breeze is cool and gentle, and Dean would bet good money that Sam intends to lie on the beach reading all day.

Dean has better plans, however.

"Rise and shine Sammy! Hurry up and get your board shorts on 'cause we're going boating," he announces.

Sam, who's all tangled up in his sleeping bag on the front lawn, stirs with a groan.

"What are you talking about, Dean?"

"Boating," Dean repeats.

"_We don't have a boat, Dean._"

Dean chuckles. "I know that, dumbass. But Cas' family has like, three of them and he invited us to come out with them, so we're going." He kicks Sam lightly to punctuate. "Right now, so you'd better get up."

Boating is awesome. Awesome enough that the awesomeness of it almost makes up for the fact that Gabriel and Luke are also there with them. Luke is slouched lazily in the driver's seat wearing some half-undone white button up shirt and looking for all the world like he thinks he's James Bond. Gabriel is busy manhandling an inflatable yellow donut up the front of the vessel so that it doesn't blow away in the wind that whooshes past as they speed and slap their way across the water's surface.

Sam, interestingly enough, is perched in the passenger chair, apparently making small talk with Luke.

All this leaves Dean and Cas in the seat along the back of the boat, which Dean is really perfectly fine with. Even if he and Cas seem to have fallen into another round of the _we-got-drunk-and-we-kissed-but-I'm-not-sure-if-we-could-also-do-that-sober _game. (At least, that's definitely the game Dean's playing.) They're probably going to have to talk about this at some point, which is going to be awkward. Dean isn't good at putting himself out there and being rejected. Hell, since Cassie dumped him years ago he's been careful never to do it. Dean sticks to the people he can read easily and accurately, who broadcast their attraction to him and their casual intentions. He doesn't do whatever weird dance this is, with its endgame of more than just a one night stand.

Not that he could convince himself to pull out of it, now that it's swept him up.

"Nice boat," he says, admiring the purr of the engine behind them, the white trail the boat leaves behind in the dark water.

"It belongs to Luke," Cas replies.

Dean chuckles. "Well, I'm not saying I'm a fan of Luke's sense of style, but _this _baby he got right."

"I'm sure Luke would appreciate the sentiment, although in his eyes this vessel's defining characteristics are that it is more expensive and more powerful than Michael's."

Rich douchebags, seriously. If Dean owned a beauty like this he'd be elbow deep in her workings every chance he got, making sure he took care of her as well as any man ever looked after his boat.

"Who's up for donutting?" Gabriel shouts. "'Cause I am _keen_."

"I'll have a go," Sam says, and Gabriel beams at him in response.

"Yeah, me too," says Dean, trying not to sound _too_ excited. (What? It's going to be fun.)

"Guests first, Gabriel," Luke reminds his brother.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Alright Sasquatch, you're up!"

Sam looks slightly embarrassed, but he strips off his t-shirt and slides his feet out of his thongs, then climbs down over the end of the boat where it bobs, still now, in the water. Gabriel chucks the donut, rope affixed, into the water and Sam hangs off it.

"Ready?" Lucifer calls out.

"Yep," Sam calls back, and a split second later they're leaping forward again, the engine roaring to life and lifting the boat up onto the plane.

Lucifer pulls the boat around in a curve and Sam goes out wide. He takes it the other way and Sam gets a face full of the foamy wake that churns out behind them, one curved line of it stretching out on each side, like a pair of wings.

"I bet you can't throw me off!" Sam challenges, and Lucifer turns to look back at him for a second, the expression on his face saying plain as day that Sam is going to regret this.

As they keep going further out, closer to the bay's inlet, the wind picks up and the swell grows higher, the glassy water turning into choppy whitecaps. The boat crashes against them with a banging noise that sounds like it's hitting concrete instead of liquid.

By the time Sam clambers back up into the boat he's dripping and grinning in equal measures.

"My turn!" Dean stands and jumps off into the water. It's cold, but in the heat it's the best kind of chill.

When Lucifer starts the engine again and they rocket away, Dean's buffeted mercilessly by the air and the waves. They swerve violently and he hangs on for dear life. In hindsight, maybe he should have known better than to sign up for this when the devil was behind the wheel.

They're on their way back home when Dean's hit in the face by a particularly large bit of spray. He's sitting at the edge of the boat so it's not the first time it's happened, but if he doesn't wipe his sunglasses off the water and salt are going to make it impossible to see anything from now on.

He reaches down to the floor of the boat where his towel rests. The second he moves it, however, he dislodges a plastic bag that'd been pinned beneath its weight. The bag is immediately scooped up by the wind and tossed out into the water behind them.

Dean's not going to say anything about it, but Sam obviously thinks differently.

"Stop," Sam says to Luke, who looks over at him with a questioning expression.

"Sam, don't worry about it," Dean tries to brush the issue off.

But Sam doesn't let it drop. "Stop the boat, Luke," he repeats.

"Why?"

"Because we just lost a plastic bag into the water. We have to go back and pick it up."

Luke's incredulity grows.

"Plastic bags can take as long as a thousand years to break down, and in the meantime they kill all kinds of wildlife; birds, seals, turtles, even _whales_—"

The boat's engine dies down and the vessel stops, sinking back down into the water.

"Wow, Lucy, I didn't realise you were such a great protector of the whales," Gabriel teases.

"I couldn't claim to be," Luke replies coolly. "But I am a proponent of standing for something and sticking by it." He steers a hard right and then the boat's turning a neat one-eighty and speeding off the way it's just come. Sam leans out the side to gather up the bag as they pass it.

"Thanks Luke," he says.

"No problem," Luke smiles back at him, which, what? When did Sam become the Satan-whisperer?

"This is so weird," Dean mutters into Cas' ear.

"It is certainly unusual," Cas replies.

"It's my last night here," Luke says as they settle onto the sand together.

They're further up the beach tonight, close enough to the sea that some of the particularly high-climbing waves reach up to touch their feet. Even at ten in the evening the air is humid and heavy, so it's nice to be on the cooler, firmer sand, and the occasional caress of the cool water is very welcome.

"You're all leaving tomorrow?"

Luke shakes his head, pops the cork out of the bottle of Moёt he nabbed from one of the numerous alcohol-stocked refrigerators in his house.

"No. Only me."

"Why?"

Luke shrugs, the sort of shrug that Dean frequently employs when he's trying but failing to pretend something isn't a big deal, isn't hurting him.

"Michael arrives tomorrow afternoon. I'm always sure to make my exit before he gets here."

Sam takes a swig of the expensive champagne.

"He's actually told you that you can't stick around?"

"Not exactly," Luke takes the long bottle back, fist tight around the neck. "But he made it clear what he thought of me, and my place in the family."

Sam wonders what on earth happened at that party that led to a brother being effectively exiled.

"I know it's not my place, but I think that whatever happened, whatever he might have said, he probably didn't mean for things to be like this. For you to be cast out like this every year that followed."

Luke's laugh is bitter. "You don't know my brother."

Sam shrugs. "No, I don't. But I do know a little bit about what older brothers are like."

"And what would you have me do?"

Sam reaches out to pat Luke on the shoulder, but he ends up holding his hand there to steady him when he leans into the touch.

"Stay," Sam says, simply.

It's a long time before Luke answers, but when he does, he says yes.

Sam's just lying on his towel trying to soak up a bit of vitamin D and read his book when Gabriel plops down beside him. He's dripping wet, having come directly out of the water, and Sam doesn't want to think about all the places that Gabriel will have to clean sand out of later as he watches him wriggle his way down into the sand.

"So did ya hear?" Gabriel says in a classic gossiping voice. "Lucifer's staying around to see the big bro for the first time in six years."

"It's been that long?" Sam wonders aloud. He has a brief moment of doubt: what if Michael and Luke's dispute really _had _been much worse than he could understand?

"Chyeah. Both of 'em need to tuck their junk away and get over themselves if you ask me. I'm not kidding myself into thinking it'll be pretty when Mike shows up and sees him, but at least it'll put a stop to the ridiculous tension that's been hanging over the whole family for way too long."

"Uh, that's good?"

Gabriel holds up his hands as though to say, _Don't shoot the messenger_. "I was just letting you know, what with you and Lucy being friends, or whatever—so you can have an idea of what to expect, and maybe a bottle of absinthe on ice."

When Gabriel pushes himself up and bolts back down towards the water, he leaves Sam feeling considerably less certain that convincing Luke to do this was really the right thing.

Dean's just going to bite the bullet and ask. Ask Cas whether he wants to go and catch a movie with him, or have dinner, or something—whether he would be interested in going on a date.

If he's not, then that's that. So Dean tries to assure himself, anyway. There are plenty more fish in the sea, right? Plenty more people on the Earth... except Castiel is sometimes so _other _that Dean wonders if he's from this planet at all, and if that's the case then the argument that there are others like him out there for Dean to find feels kind of flimsy.

...He needs to stop trying to reason with himself, because it's really not going so well.

Cas is looking at him with concern.

"Is everything alright?" he asks, and goddamn it, is it _that _obvious that he's nervous?

Dean wipes his palms surreptitiously on his trousers. "Yeah," he says, "everything's good. I was just wondering if, uh, you wanted to go see a movie, maybe get dinner, tonight? With me."

Dean can't read the expression on Cas' face, and he doesn't like that fact at all. He's nearly resolved to backpedal, try to add some kind of extra disclaimer to make it easier for Cas to let him down easy and put an end to this whole dreadful conversation, when Cas answers him.

"I'm afraid that with Luke remaining for Michael's arrival, I am somewhat obliged to be at home tonight, if only to operate the fire extinguisher."

Something in Dean's chest aches a little, and he tries hard not to think about what it might be.

"Hey, no worries man," he brushes the dismissal off.

"I should very much like to join you for dinner and a movie tomorrow night, however, if you are available then," Cas adds, and Dean's already so far into talking himself down that it takes him by surprise.

"Really?" he asks, and he can feel his eyebrows crawling up his forehead in disbelief.

"Yes," Cas says easily, and he leans forward to peck Dean on the mouth, their first sober kiss.

Sam doesn't buy absinthe like Gabriel had suggested, but he does end up at the bottle shop picking out some whiskey. If things are really likely to go _drinking-to-forget _badly, he's the one who should be responsible for administering the necessary medicine. It's his fault that this is all going ahead, his fault for meddling where he shouldn't have. He'd considered telling Luke that maybe he should leave after all, but he absolutely hadn't the heart for that kind of cruelty.

It doesn't help that Dean's been walking around with a huge dopey grin all day. Sam guesses that he and Cas have finally sorted out the ridiculous sexual tension between them that, if it were any thicker, would become corporeal and literallyshove their mouths together.

Sam passes the afternoon twitchily turning the pages of his book and failing to really take in any of what's happening in the story. He's perched on the low brick wall around their shack's front yard, looking out past the pines to the ocean, when Luke joins him. For a long while Luke says nothing, and Sam holds up his end of the silence because he doesn't know what he ought to say.

"If you're not too busy, I wanted to ask if you'd perhaps come to the dinner tonight," Luke asks, so quietly Sam almost misses it. His voice is as tentative as his wording, both of them uncharacteristically uncertain.

"Of course," Sam acquiesces, because as uncomfortable as he's sure this is going to be, if Luke wants him there then he cannot in good conscience leave him to go it alone.

"Good," Luke nods. "It'll be better with a friend there." Then he seems to stiffen, the way Dean does after slipping and accidentally letting himself talk about feelings. "Besides, you're a sizeable guy; if things really go south I'm sure you'll be an asset to the brawl breakup team."

Sam really doesn't like the way that Luke's only _mostly _joking.

A red-haired woman answers the door.

"Hello," she says brightly, though there are worry lines on her face, "I'm Anna, Cas' and Balthazar's sister. You must be Sam and Dean."

"Yeah, that's us," Dean says. "Nice to meet you, Anna."

"Well, come on in," she gestures for them to come forward, stepping aside to let them pass into a big, white-painted foyer. The floor is all reddish timber, lacquered so that it shines like wet glass.

"Nice place," Sam says politely.

Anna laughs lightly. "It was always a little extravagant for my liking, but my uncle enjoyed working on it, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. He did all the walls and ceilings himself, sanded and sealed all the woodwork. He always said he wanted to leave something great for his children. Michael helped finish it off after he disappeared. So knowing that makes it a lot more personal, I guess."

Great, now Dean feels worse about calling Cas' house douchey.

"Castiel! Lucifer!" Anna shouts, directing the first name up a large staircase to their right and the second further down the hall.

Cas appears first, hurrying down the stairs to greet Dean with a wide smile. God, Dean really likes that smile. He's a lucky guy.

Luke appears a minute later, swaggering down the hall and into view like he's in no hurry and enjoys making everyone wait.

"Come on through," Luke says, speaking mostly to Sam. "Dinner's just about ready."

Dinner is a buffet affair. There are multiple tables all lined with chairs for the dozens of relatives who mill around the room. Some of them are working, setting out cutlery and peeling glad wrap from the tops of salad bowls. Someone comes in from outside with a plate of barbecued meat in either hand and sets them on the kitchen bench. Dean watches as the same guy goes outside again with two more empty plates and returns with them heavily laden with steaks and onions and crispy-looking chicken drumsticks. The scent of food is everywhere, and Dean breathes it in with gusto.

"This looks freakin' amazing," he tells Cas as people start lining up, ready to pile their plates high.

The sound of a car crunching over the gravel of the driveway out the front stops almost everybody in their tracks. Dean's noticed that nobody's been parked in the driveway, even though at least six shiny cars have lined the street outside, so he figures that whoever's pulling in to it now is either lost or important enough to warrant saving all that space for.

"Is that—is it him?" Dean hears Sam ask somewhere behind him.

"Yes, it's him," Luke replies, voice tight.

Someone's already hurrying to the door, and then the sound of it opening and shutting again seems to echo throughout the house.

"It's very quiet in here," says a voice which, judging by the deep breath Luke pulls in, belongs to Michael. It doesn't sound like anything that special, not deep like Cas' or booming like the guy's some kind of god, here to call down judgement upon everybody. It's just normal. "Has everyone else gone out?" Michael asks jokily.

"No, no, we're all here," Dean recognises Anna's voice.

When Anna and Michael finally arrive in the large kitchen-dining-living area, Dean sees that Michael is a reasonably tall, sandy blonde man with even, angular bone structure. He carries a briefcase like he's just come from work, and he wears a suit that looks designer even to Dean who knows fuck all about suits and their varying labels.

Michael casts his eyes around the room, and a few people nod in greeting, but nobody speaks.

"Has something happened?" he asks.

He looks puzzled until finally his gaze falls on the corner of the room where Dean's standing. Suddenly Dean is rethinking his assessment of Michael as fairly innocuous; there's something in those pale eyes that pins him to the spot, like his clothes have been tacked to the wall behind him with throwing knives.

Dean feels someone tugging at his arm, looks over to see Cas pulling him to the side. He realises suddenly that the sea of people has parted around Luke, opening him up for that hard stare of Michael's to discover. Dean's hanging awkwardly in the middle of the gap between Luke and the crowd, but as he sees Sam, still standing with Luke in the middle of the opening, Dean stays where he is, sidles a bit closer to his brother.

"Luke?" Michael's voice isn't loud, but Luke flinches at the sound of it.

"Michael," he says.

"You've actually come for family dinner?"

"Yes. They're my family too."

Michael frowns. "Of course they are," he says. "I just didn't think you enjoyed seeing us."

"My _family_," Luke says—shouts, really. Dean notices the way Sam rests a hand just ever so lightly on his back, and Luke seems to centre himself again. "I care about nothing _more_."

"But you never... you became so competitive, with your boat that had to be faster and better than anything the rest of us owned, and your refusal to come and stay with us over summer—"

"I come _every summer_!" Luke roars. "But then I leave, the day before _you _arrive."

Michael looks stricken. He glances away from Luke for a moment, seems to search the faces of the other family members for some kind of confirmation that what he's saying is true, and some kind of explanation as to why no-one ever told him. Dean thinks about what it would be like if Sam avoided him like that for six whole years, and he despises the thought. Just Sam leaving for Stanford was too much, and they'd never lost contact for more than a handful of months.

"Why?" is all Michael manages.

"Because I wasn't _welcome _here!"

"You would have been," Michael says, soft but sure. "But you never allowed me to welcome you."

Luke responds with a defensive sneer. "Why would you welcome me, brother? A corrupting influence? Irresponsible and disobedient and destructive?"

Michael sighs. "I was angry, and I said many things. I laid a lot of blame—too much of it on you. But Luke, you can't truly believe I never wanted to see you again?"

The wounded expression on Luke's face makes it clear that he really _had _thought that.

"Little brother," Michael says, and crowds Luke up against his chest in an awkward embrace. That Luke doesn't resist him communicates everything else that needs saying.

"What do you think, Sammy," Dean says as they pack their sleeping bags and eskies and other crap into the car, ready to return Sam to Stanford and Dean to Bobby's. "Reckon we could fix this place up, make it a real Winchester holiday home again?"

Sam chucks his pillow into the back seat, turns and smiles a calm, honest-to-god _happy _smile. "Yeah," he replies, "I hope so. Are you good to go now?"

Dean hadn't been in a good place before they'd come out here—he'd been so frustrated he wanted to tear something apart, and so listless with his father gone that he wouldn't have minded if that something was himself. Now, though, he has his brother smiling down at him; a nice long stretch of road ahead; a box full of rock cassettes that, if he's lucky, Sam won't be a bitch about listening to; Cas' number in his phone, and the promise of more summers like this one to come.

"Yeah," he says, "I'm good."


End file.
